Will It Blend? That is the question....

Apparently I'm not the only person who loves to watch the Blendtec"Will it Blend?" videos on YouTube. The company reports that the video series has had over 100 million views so far, making it one of the more successful viral marketing campaigns. 

Now you can see the top 20 "Will It Blend?" episodes in all their high quality color glory, thanks to a new app of that name. Treat yourself and friends to the thrill of Tom Dickson (right) feeding an iPhone 3G into a Blendtec blender in higher quality than you've ever seen it before.

Other favorites -- iPod, glow sticks, and Chuck Norris, to name a few -- are included as well. What's great is that you don't need a 3G or Wi-Fi connection to download these wonderful videos, as they're built into the app. A

Liars Den & Madison Ave. Bars Open

He likes to socialize over brats and brew. You prefer catching up over bubbly and canapes. Thanks to a new double nightlife venture on McKinney Avenue, you can always get what you want. Housed in the same building, the sister bars offer something for Joe Six-packs and Gossip Girls. Liars Den serves American fare, loads of beer, and big screens with nonstop sports coverage.

 Upstairs, the swanky yet affordable Madison Avenue lounge dishes bottle service (only a one-bottle minimum) and a live DJ Wednesday through Saturday nights. Both bars have outdoor patios with sweeping views. No matter what your perspective.

 Liars Den and Madison Avenue, 2710 McKinney Avenue, Uptown (214-303-1415).

Teens copying enemies' license plates to get revenge via speed cameras

Teens are known for having a lot of time, some seriously outrageous ideas for filling that time, and a slightly obsessive need for revenge. Add a few residential speed cameras into that mix, and what you have is a creative perversion of the entire speed camera system. Teens in Maryland have evidently been printing out the license plates numbers of rival teens, putting them on their own cars, and then purposely blasting by speed cameras posted in residential neighborhoods. The rival teen -- or his parents -- then gets a $40 citation in the mail.

The police say they haven't heard anything about it, and the local government doesn't sound like it has come up with any way to prevent or limit the habit. Which means that teens will be teens, and parents will be left to complain about it and fight the citations in court. Said one parent, "I hope the public at large will complain loudly enough that local Montgomery County government officials will change their policy of using these cameras for monetary gain. The practice of sending speeding tickets to faceless recipients without any type of verification is unwarranted and an exploitation of our rights." Oh, these kids today...full article here. 

Darius Goes West..

Darius Weems wanted MTV to customize his wheelchair on the show “Pimp My Ride.” The fifteen-year-old also wanted to raise awareness for Duchene muscular dystrophy (DMD). Introducing Darius and his wheelchair to the millions watching “Pimp My Ride,” would raise awareness of DMD—the number one genetic killer of young people in the world. DMD took the lives of Darius’ uncle and brother, and will one day claim Darius’ life.  Darius wanted to attract more than the declining generation donating to Jerry Lewis’ telethon for Muscular Dystrophy. He wanted a new strategy to spread awareness among a younger generation—among which there might be an individual who will one day find a cure.  Before he died, Darius’ 19-year-old brother, Mario, asked his friend, Logan Smalley, to watch out for Darius. Go check his website out.

SMU Undergrad Drug/Rape/Poker Den Death

The women came to his poker room near the Southern Methodist University campus – sometimes with their boyfriends, sometimes by themselves.

Many of them found the atmosphere at his illicit poker games enticing, said James McDaniel, a self-described professional poker player known for hosting Texas Hold 'Em games four nights a week. Authorities say Mr. McDaniel preyed on at least four of these women, maybe many more, offering them free drugs and alcohol. But , prosecutors say he tricked the women with ground-up depressants instead of lines of cocaine, or slipped the date-rape drug GHB into their drinks.

When they woke up, they believed they had been raped.

Federal prosecutors have asked the women, most of them former SMU students, to testify anonymously at Mr. McDaniel's trial. They say he caused the 2007 death of Meaghan Bosch, the 21-year-old SMU student from McKinney whose fatal overdose prompted serious introspection at the university about students' abuse of drugs.

Ms. Bosch had cocaine, methamphetamine and the addictive pain pill and respiratory depressant oxycodone in her system when she died – the same drugs Mr. McDaniel is accused of supplying to her. Authorities say he also was a drug pipeline for other SMU students. 

The rest of the Dallas Morning News article here. 

• Poker Nights
  
• Some Admissions
  
• Third SMU Drug Death
  
• Date Rape Suspect
  

Here is another article in the DMN regarding another overdose a few weeks ago at SMU published on Dec. 7, 2008.

Recent Living Creations

Project One: Wheatgrass in lit frosted glass planter

Project Two: Wheatgrass in square vase

Project Four: Wheatgrass Terrarium

Project Five: White orchid submerged in white rocks

Project Six: Bonsai tree in LED lit glass planter

Project Five: close-up

Future Project: Thai Betta fish home

Kanye West to Quit Rap for Job at Louis Vuitton

Grammy Award-winning rapper, record producer and shameless self-promoter Kanye West plans to ditch his music career in favor of fashion.

 West, 31, tells the London Daily Mirror he'll move to the British capital next year to begin at the bottom rung with an internship at Louis Vuiton's UK HQ in Bond Street - or so he hopes.

 "I'm going to go and take an internship and just do something that's like completely normal," he tells the paper, "and just rap at the weekends or something."

 If the Vuitton gig doesn't materialize, West will apply at other major European fashion houses in hopes of learning the rag trade. Any fashionistas out there want a major pain in the ass to fetch coffee and such?

Behind ESPN/ABC Sports Boss, Jerry Jones is Most Powerful Man in Sports.

A $1 billion stadium opening in 2009, a concessions partnership with the New York Yankees, borrowing $350 million at the peak of the credit crisis, struggling to find a naming-rights company in a sour economy, arguing for the NFL Network to gain cable distribution. Oh, did we mention that Jerry Jones also has a football team under his wing that plays in Dallas and gets a bit of attention?

With or without Pacman, it has been an eventful and amazing year for Jones, one that has seen his influence not just in football, but in all of sports, rise dramatically. See the whole list here.

Man Charged In Bizarre Castration Plot

A Delaware man has been arrested after being accused of arranging a bizarre plot that involved castrating his ex-son-in-law. Wilbur Eichman has been charged with one count of criminal solicitation after he paid a man cash to beat up his ex-son-in-law.Police say Eichman paid 34-year-old Charles Pernot $1,200 to beat up the victim and even offered up a bonus if Pernot cut off the victim's genitals.

"He offered or suggested he use a high power rifle and he said that if you castrate him, there will be a bonus in that for you, an additional $3,000," Corporal Trinidad Navarro said.

Investigators said Eichman even wanted his ex-son-in-law's genitals brought to him. Story via Evan. More Here. 

New driver's license rule will trip up more grannies than terrorists

Want to keep your driver’s license?

First, find your birth certificate.

In yet another example of bungling in Austin, Gov. Rick Perry’s appointees have passed a rule that will punish little old ladies on the pretext of nabbing terrorists.

As of Oct. 1, everybody with an expired driver’s license — even if it’s only a day out of date — must come up with a notarized birth certificate, passport or residency card to regain driving privileges, no matter how long they’ve lived in Texas.

And even if your license hasn’t expired, you might not escape the long arm of the Texas Public Safety Commission.

Lifelong Texans, particularly older Texans, are suddenly being asked to prove their citizenship if that information wasn’t included when the Department of Public Safety computerized its records.

And if you’re a foreigner here legally on a visa — students, refugees, those seeking political asylum — you might as well get comfy at the DPS office. More here.